People with massive cultural voids

[Lemming]

I got a first in English Lit back in 1999 and have only read three books* since despite being an avid reader as a kid. I think that for some people the process of learning how to analyse literature somehow ruins the magic (a bit like that old aphorism about explaining a joke being like dissecting a frog).

That's a great point, English Literature as it's taught in schools really has a habit of destroying people's desire to read. Same for PE and physical activity/sports, which I had such deeply awful experiences with that I didn't even do basic exercise for years after school.

The sheer quantity of fanfiction, forum posts with long anecdotes, absurdist comedy/wordplay on Twitter and so on being pumped out online shows that young people do still love reading and the art of writing, but they've just been put off reading actual books.

We did Wuthering Heights at high school. Nightmare beyond belief.

[Phil_A]

I'm a trillion times more bothered about this than people not knowing Dallasty. I don't know the difference and I'm from the generation that was supposed to be watching them, similarly the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films.

I also don't mind that there are fewer common reference points from popular culture, though unfortunately I don't think that means people are finding their own reference points, because there is no real culture any more for people to refer to. What is genuinely familiar and not administered by industrial entertainment or mediated by technological devices like the one I'm typing on now?

Yeah, I think that's part of what I was trying to get at, what's taken the place of that shared cultural experience feels a lot colder and less engaging. There's very little impetus now for people to go out and discover things on their own, because the majority of the media we consume is handed to us on a plate. I'm sure most people don't see the point in buying CDs or even MP3s when they just stream music on Spotify. Same with films - so much simpler to just stick Netflix on rather than trekking out to the cinema.

I imagine most people's future music listening experiences will look something like this - https://www.techhive.com/article/3268326/home-audio/roxi-review.html - a subscription streaming device that plugs into your telly and just pumps whatever you want to listen to directly into your home, which means even less chance of discovering something off the beaten track.

I think we're at the nearly point now where just being someone who collects physical media - books, records, DVDs etc, marks you out as a bit odd.

[Cuellar]

Who cares, "books are a load of crap".

You know which "philosopher" said that? Philip Larkin.

And people say he's just a big pair of tits.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I got a first in English Lit back in 1999 and have only read three books* since despite being an avid reader as a kid. I think that for some people the process of learning how to analyse literature somehow ruins the magic (a bit like that old aphorism about explaining a joke being like dissecting a frog).

^{* Interestingly, they were all non-fiction (Frank Skinner's eponymous autobiography, Back Story by David Mitchell and Germania by Simon Winder).}

I know where you're coming from, funnily enough I graduated in 99 as well (only a 2:1 though) and for a year afterwards I didn't go near a book, the joy had mostly been sucked out of reading. Thankfully I then read a book I really loved and got back in to it, but I can understand why others might not have. Oddly though I quite dissecting comedy, and doing so hasn't put me off at all.

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

I've found from watching interviews and my own creative endeavours that often after making a thing, the last thing in the world you want to do is experience more of it.  You've just spent days obsessively dwelling on the minutiae of that beat, that scene, or that made-up world.  It scratches a similar itch to what makes the fans want to experience it. It also helps sometimes to be a bit solipsistic when you're trying to be creative.  That "I don't want to accidentally be influenced by anyone else" line.  You'd think you'd have to fanatically love a medium in order to make more of it, but I guess that's not how creative channelling necessarily works.  Still, there's no fucking way your mate's sci-fi novel isn't going to be kaka.

EDIT: There's also this weird thing where, even if you're making shit music or what have you, the fact that you're versing yourself in the process makes all other music seem oddly transparent.  You hear the two-note keyboard riffs and cycled drum loops all too clearly.  Luckily, you get over yourself eventually.  Mostly.

I think music is possibly the one exception where the less exposure you have to what other people are doing, the better the end product. You do need to insulate yourself from other people's output to a large extent.

With writing, however, I think it's virtually impossible to do anything different without doing an insane amount of reading. For some reason I can't quite fathom, writing is the one field of activity where being completely clueless to the past will just result in repetition of whatever came before. You'll probably just end up rediscovering stream-of-consciousness prose for the umpteenth time.

[Pseudopath]

Thankfully I then read a book I really loved and got back in to it

Do you mind me asking which book?

[nedthemumbler]

I don't know if you're just saying that, or are unaware of the radio/TV show I've Never Seen Star Wars.

Um yeah, I am aware.  Very bad jokes clearly don't translate online.

Do you mind me asking which book?

Harry Potter.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Do you mind me asking which book?

The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Ahem, sorry, couldn't resist, it was Ghostwritten by David Mitchell. I've got a bit of a thing for him and love pretty much all of his books, the only one that I didn't really click with was The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet but I know a fair few people who love that too.

[nedthemumbler]

The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown.

Sorry late edit, but clearly great minds think alike.

[Zetetic]

What is genuinely familiar and not administered by industrial entertainment or mediated by technological devices like the one I'm typing on now?

Cats and premium/economy distinctions in supermarket own-brands.

[Brundle-Fly]

I think we're at the nearly point now where just being someone who collects physical media - books, records, DVDs etc, marks you out as a bit odd.

I remember Stewart Lee said about twenty years ago that our generation still buying vinyl LPs in the eyes of a young person was akin to observing an eccentric Victorian butterfly collecter in his tasselled hat and Pince-nez spectacles, prancing around brandishing a big net.

That flipped on its head. For now anyway.

[lgpmachine]

Not exactly a massive cultural void, but I was a bit taken aback at the work Christmas party last week when the Marketing Apprentice I was talking to didn't know who Harold Bishop was.

[manticore]

What is genuinely familiar and not administered by industrial entertainment or mediated by technological devices like the one I'm typing on now?

Cats and premium/economy distinctions in supermarket own-brands.

I'm not a witch and I have no familiar! It's often hard tell how much the familiarity one might feel one feels with those creatures is based on anthropomorphism.

Which? spelt differently says that often it's barely possible to tell budget and premium own-brands apart, so the difference is indeed pretty much unfamiliar to most people, though it may seem so in their imaginations.

[Sin Agog]

I think music is possibly the one exception where the less exposure you have to what other people are doing, the better the end product. You do need to insulate yourself from other people's output to a large extent.

With writing, however, I think it's virtually impossible to do anything different without doing an insane amount of reading. For some reason I can't quite fathom, writing is the one field of activity where being completely clueless to the past will just result in repetition of whatever came before. You'll probably just end up rediscovering stream-of-consciousness prose for the umpteenth time.

Yeah, with you there.  Reading enriches every medium*.  Werner Herzog runs a filmmaking course, and on day dot he tells his students to bog off home to read some books.


*well, provided it's not Dan Brown

[Small Man Big Horse]

Sorry late edit, but clearly great minds think alike.

Indeed. And I did read Harry Potter in 2002, maybe if I hadn't picked up Ghostwritten I'd never have been subjected to such a thing (though I did actually like the first three, got bored during the fourth and skipped the rest, and as I never watched the films to this day I don't know how it ends).

[Buelligan]

[tag]Albert Hall slinks into thread looking shifty[/tag]

[Psmith]

I'm in a cultural void these days.And happy to be.
It was only recently I discovered why when people take selfies they appear to be looking at the front of the phone but the camera is at the back.It's all done with mirrors apparently.

[canadagoose]

I'm in a cultural void these days.And happy to be.
It was only recently I discovered why when people take selfies they appear to be looking at the front of the phone but the camera is at the back.It's all done with mirrors apparently.

I hate to say it, but there's usually a camera at the front of phones too - a "selfie cam". Not that I'm much of a Snapchatter or anything.

[manticore]

I don't have a smartphone. I touched one for the first time last week to see what it felt like and I didn't like it. How is that people have come to experience the glacial as cozy?

I don't want to be the adjunct of any technological device, he typed on his computer.

[Icehaven]

I'm in a cultural void these days.And happy to be.
It was only recently I discovered why when people take selfies they appear to be looking at the front of the phone but the camera is at the back.It's all done with mirrors apparently.

I don't have a smartphone. I touched one for the first time last week to see what it felt like and I didn't like it. How is that people have come to experience the glacial as cozy?

I don't want to be the adjunct of any technological device, he typed on his computer.

It's just occurred to me recently how many features I originally tbought were a bit daft for a phone to be able to do have now become completely normal to me. Having cameras on phones seemed a bit unecessary given digital cameras were so much better, didn't anticipate phone ones getting so much better so fast. And when I first learned that now you could put music on them and have any tune you wanted as your ringtone I thought "why would you want to do that?", but of course I do it now, most people do. I'm still not sold on your phone being everything from your music player to your travel pass to your payment method, it's still just a fragile device that can be and frequently is easily lost, stolen or broken and then you're screwed.

[chveik]

don't think I have one of those cultural voids. I wish I had sometimes, I've lost a lot of time trying to enjoy stuff because some critic  said it was wonderful.

[Sin Agog]

don't think I have one of those cultural voids. I wish I had sometimes, I lost a lot of time trying to enjoy stuff because some critic  said it was wonderful.

Just re-read walkman's post about book-reading which I said I agreed with.  Was at some family's when I wrote my earlier reply.  I do NOT agree that you have to plow through the canon first before you venture out into your own literary world.  That particular line of thinking is why so many youngsters still refuse to deviate from the Rolling Stone Top 100 and erect their own personalised canon.  P'raps you'll brush shoulders with some of the usual suspects in your initial excursions away from the village, but it's a beautiful thing discovering things which speak to you in a personal and unique way.  Like, I gain far more pleasure reading Liz I's personal magician John Dee's conversations with angels or Huey P. Newton's rabble-rousing memoirs Revolutionary Suicide than I do from Dickens.  Which isn't a knock against Dickens, but he was not writing for me, and nor should he have to.

[chveik]

Just re-read walkman's post about book-reading which I said I agreed with.  Was at some family's when I wrote my earlier reply.  I do NOT agree that you have to plow through the canon first before you venture out into your own literary world.  That particular line of thinking is why so many youngsters still refuse to deviate from the Rolling Stone Top 100 and erect their own personalised canon.  P'raps you'll brush shoulders with some of the usual suspects in your initial excursions away from the village, but it's a beautiful thing discovering things which speak to you in a personal and unique way.  Like, I gain far more pleasure reading Liz I's personal magician John Dee's conversations with angels or Huey P. Newton's rabble-rousing memoirs Revolutionary Suicide than I do from Dickens.  Which isn't a knock against Dickens, but he was not writing for me, and nor should he have to.

I was more talking about music or cinema, because a good part of pop culture is really disappointing. As for literature, I think there's often a reason why some books are considered classics and others are not. But it doesn't really matter, the important thing is the way they affect you and help you to get through life's hardships. I'm watching my bookshelf now and from a stranger's point of view I guess it could be seen as rather conventional in a way, because there are mostly well known authors. But I do truly enjoy them, I'm glad that school didn't ruin them for me.

[famethrowa]

I've lost a lot of time trying to enjoy stuff because some critic  said it was wonderful.

me in the mid-late 90's, reading Q magazine

[bgmnts]

Your mum?

[Captain Z]

I felt like this this morning when I discovered that some bloke called Gareth Thomas exists, won the tour De France this year and apparently is sports personality of the year. Never heard of the cunt.

[DrGreggles]

I felt like this this morning when I discovered that some bloke called Gareth Thomas exists, won the tour De France this year and apparently is sports personality of the year. Never heard of the cunt.

Likewise.

And I was surprised that SPOTY is still going.
And that everyone calls it SPOTY.

[Captain Z]

Likewise.

And I was surprised that SPOTY is still going.
And that everyone calls it SPOTY.

I swear there was an article at the side of the football page last night that said 'Gareth Southgate announced sports personality of the year', I only skimmed past it but I remember thinking 'yeah, no surprise there'.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

This ties into an idea I've been struggling to verbalise for a while, which is basically that the collective pop cultural knowledge that most people would've shared at one time just seems to have evaporated in the last couple of decades

Thinking back to when I was still at school twenty-odd years ago, there used to be those kind of common reference points, things everyone would know about. You could make a reference to The Simpsons, Only Fools & Horses, what bands had been on TOTP that week, etc and you were pretty much guaranteed most people would get it. Most of my friendships were formed through those shared interests, and the people I consider friends today are all pretty into the same kind of stuff.

But it feels like it's less and less common now to meet people that share the shame interests as you, especially if your interest don't directly correlate with what is currently "in".

The only TV shows I hear people chat about at work are Strictly, I'm A Celebrity, Bake-Off and X-Factor - those are the common reference points now, not that's there's anything wrong with watching those shows, but it just seems like the cultural discourse has become so limited if that's all we have to talk about.

This is an extremely interesting point. I think the appeal of a few things this year; Love Island, Bodyguard, the World Cup was that everyone seemed to be watching (in my demographic anyway). It happens so rarely.

The other problem with Netflix is that someone will be "have you seen [show x]" and someone else will be "yeah but I'm only on episode 4" and there the conversation ends. And by the time the second person as seen it all the first won't remember much about it.

We're all slowly being cut off from each other by the mass pop culture that used to bring us together.

Although when I make this point to my partner she'll usually mention that when she was growing up her family watched barely any telly at all and was completely uninterested in watching sport so she missed out on absolutely everything pop culture wise as a kid. So she has no idea about, I dunno, Deirdre being locked up or Gladiators or Power Rangers or "can Manchester United score, they always score" or the Chicken Tonight dance or the good episodes of the Simpsons and doesn't feel like she missed anything.

And over the summer when I mentioned that 25 million people (including her) watched England v Croatia she pointed out that that means that 40 million people didn't watch it.

EDIT: yeah my point here is that my wife has massive cultural voids in the "shared national events" space and doesn't care. She's read all of Austen and Dickens and the like tho which suggests her adolescence was better spent than mine, a man who can sing the whole of the Monorail song